Monday, January 16, 2012

Critique

This is a copy of the comment I just wrote on a blog post that came to my attention from other 12WBT alumni on twitter.

She doesn’t deserve a link, but otherwise you won’t know what I’m talking about - https://www.treatyourselfwell.com.au/blog/michelle-bridges-is-stalking-me/

Basically she’s come out flinging mud at 12WBT (and personally at Michelle Bridges), in the hope that it will stick, and as a means of promoting her own 12 week program. #WTF?! as we might tag this topic on twitter!

Seeing my comment (and a few others I gather) are awaiting moderation (so, no doubt, she can tell us all that we must be in the 5%).. I’m posting mine here and now:

MY COMMENT:
Talk about bad-mouthing a competitor. Your article, and your comments are so ill-informed and so unbalanced I am too disgusted to even go and have a look at your link. Besides which, I don’t need to. I am another happy 12WBT customer who lost 11kg during the one and only round I did – over one year ago. I lost another 5 afterwards, bringing me to a happy goal weight which I have sustained for the rest of 2011. 12WBT is NOT some fad diet/exercise program – it’s a total lifestyle change or reboot (depending on where you’re at when you start).

What really makes 12WBT work is exactly the mindset tools that you so glibly lambast. Whether or not Michelle Bridges has formal psychology training, she bloody well knows and understands the psychology behind what makes people eat too much, eat too much crap, and not exercise consistently. I was someone who actually did exercise before 12WBT, but I didn’t do it consistently, and I did indeed eat too much, AND too much crap. And everything she said in those mindset videos hit the spot… And there is nothing wrong with hearing the words ‘you don’t need to go down this aisle’ in your head when temptation awaits in the supermarket.

Michelle walks her talk.. so you know you’re not being ‘lectured’ by some skinny bitch who can eat all she wants (one of the ‘it’s not fair’ excuses I used for years to justify what I was and wasn’t doing…) But I don’t feel for one minute that I want or need to look exactly like her.. Funny, you know.. her program gives you the tools to have the guts and determination to be your own person.

The other criticism you’ve made, and one which I’m sick of hearing in the media is this latest fightback against recommending weight loss. It’s political correctness gone mad!! Fact: carrying too much weight is NOT good for your health. What the heck is wrong with acknowledging this? Apart from hating how I looked when my weight measured in the ‘overweight’ BMI range, I was feeling it in my joints and despite doing a regular swimming squad and cycling some pretty long distances, my aerobic fitness was below par. I looked at my very very overweight mother in law in her late 70s struggling to lift her own bodyweight out of a chair (never mind walking) after yet another knee operation, and I knew that I didn’t want to end up like that.

I don’t deny you can be active if you are ‘overweight’ – I was – but it is a million times easier and better being active when you are within a healthy weight range. And if using figures (measurements, a number on a scale) helps me keep myself in check, then what the hell is wrong with that?

I for one am extremely thankful that the ad for 12WBT “stalked” me enough times on my facebook page (no wonder, I constantly ‘talked’ about needing to lose weight) .. that I checked it out, and ummed and ahhed about doing it. It’s the best spontaneous purchase I ever made – and the best $199 I ever ever spent.